


Mama Holt's Army

by squirenonny



Series: Voltron: Duality [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (only in that there's a scene that takes place while Pidge still goes by Katie and uses she/her), AU, Childhood Memories, Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Misgendering, Non-binary Pidge | Katie Holt, Original Character(s), Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-04
Updated: 2016-11-25
Packaged: 2018-08-28 22:38:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8465635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squirenonny/pseuds/squirenonny
Summary: One year ago, Karen Holt lost her husband and son. Her youngest assumed a fake identity and infiltrated the Galaxy Garrison in search of answers. Instead, Pidge was killed in a training accident, along with two other students--or so the Garrison claims. Karen has reason to doubt the official story, and she's going to do whatever it takes to find out the truth.





	1. Karen Holt

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is part of the larger Voltron: Duality universe. You don't have to have read the rest of the series for this to make sense, but know that it takes place in an AU where it was Matt Holt who escaped the Galra and crash landed on Earth, not Shiro.

“They’re hiding something, Mom. You _know_ they are!”

Katie’s frustration filled the kitchen like a living thing, snapping and snarling and clawing at Karen’s patience. She didn’t know if her daughter had deliberately chosen to have this conversation while Karen was juggling two pans and a half-cooked pot of pasta, or if it was the universe telling her to have patience.

The truth was, Karen Holt was not a patient woman. She’d had a lot of people fooled for a long time, but that was before she lost half her world. Sam had always been her voice of reason. Kind, unflappable, and perpetually optimistic, Sam Holt was all the things Karen was not. Her sharp tongue and belligerent personality had served her well in the courtroom, but she’d trained herself in a different set of verbal weapons to manage the condescending, red-tape-riddled boys’ club that was the Galaxy Garrison.

Thirteen years after bringing her daughter into the world, Karen was still learning the rules of this particular arena.

“Katie, I can’t do this with you right now.”

Katie groaned, a guttural sound that said she was gearing up for a fight. “You keep saying that, Mom. We’re running out of time!”

Karen turned down the heat on the front burners and gave Katie her full attention. “All right. You want to do this now?”

“Yes!”

“Fine. You’re not going.”

“ _What?_ ” Katie threw down the folder full of paper she’d brought in to make her case. (Of course she’d brought it with her. Of _course_ she had. Katie was as bad as any lawyer in her own way.)

Crossing her arms, Karen waited out the tempest. When Katie dropped into a chair at the kitchen table—piled high with mail and circuit boards and newspaper clippings—Karen raised an eyebrow. “May I continue?” Katie muttered something Karen chose to interpret as agreement. “Thank you, your Honor.”

Karen could have rendered bacon over the heat of Katie’s glare.

Instead, she contented herself with a small, vicious smile. “Let’s take a step back for a moment and examine your thought process here, shall we?” Karen had slipped into her lawyer voice, and from the curl of Katie’s lip, she knew it. Maybe it was unfair of Karen, but it was a reflex. Two weeks into her bereavement leave and she was already spoiling for a good debate.

Heaven help her, but Katie was just the person to give it to her.

“You don’t like the Garrison’s official story. Fair enough. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t tried to rearrange the facts into something easier to swallow.” Katie’s eyes were two hazel kerosene lamps burning into Karen’s head, so Karen turned to pace the kitchen. “But you didn’t stop there—oh no. You took a look at the available options and decided the best thing to do would be to start collecting criminal charges like baseball cards.” She counted them off on her fingers. “Three counts of trespassing. Two counts of B-and-E. A whole _host_ of computer crimes—unlawful use, data theft, computer fraud probably.”

“I didn’t have a choice!” Katie protested. “They weren’t going to tell us anything if I didn’t, and--”

Karen held up a hand to silence the argument. She knew better than to say it out loud, but part of her agreed with her daughter’s hacking escapades. It terrified her, but if she’d had Katie’s skill with computers, she probably would have done it herself.

She couldn’t afford to encourage that kind of behavior.

“I know what you _think_ you found,” she said, struggling to keep the lie from showing on her face. Karen knew _exactly_ what Katie had found, and while it wasn’t proof, it painted a very clear and very damning picture. “But we have official channels for this sort of thing. You can’t just go breaking into Commander Iverson’s office whenever you feel like it.”

“I can’t _now_ ,” Katie muttered, flushing as Karen’s gaze fell on her. “Mom, you _know_ the Garrison’s just going to block whatever legal mumbo-jumbo you toss at them.”

Karen bristled at the term _mumb-jumbo_ , but didn’t let Katie derail the argument. “I overlooked the hacking incidents because I know what you’re going through. You think I don’t miss them? You think I wouldn’t break a few laws if it would bring them back alive?” A lump rose in Karen’s throat, and she turned back to the stove to salvage what was left of her composure.

“I know you’re just trying to help, but enrolling in the Garrison—under an assumed identity, no less!” She almost had to laugh at the audacity of it. A year ago, she might have been proud. Now she just felt the fear close tighter around her throat. “That’s no way to go about this. At _best_ you’ll be expelled and black-listed from government positions. At worst--”

“At worst I’ll spend a couple years in juvie, Mom, I _know_. I don’t care.”

“You could _die_ , Katie!”

The skillet banged against the burner as Karen slammed it down and turned back toward the kitchen table. The table still set for four even though there were only two people left to use it. (They didn’t use it. Not since Iverson showed up on their door in his dress uniform with his hat in his hands. They ate on the couch now, and let the kitchen table drown under the flotsam of their shipwrecked life.)

For once, Katie was silent, staring at her socks as Karen scrubbed her hands over her face.

“Your dad and your brother died because they worked for the Garrison. What’s your endgame, Katie? You pull off this whole—this Pidge Gunderson sham and start training? What if you don’t find the answers you want in a couple of weeks? What if there _are_ no answers to find? Are you just going to keep up the act forever? All the simulations, all the training? Are you going to go on your own Kerberos mission and die on some other god-forsaken planet?”

“I...” Katie’s shoulders hunched forward as she pulled her knees up onto the chair. She’d grabbed last Friday’s newspaper off the table and was methodically shredding it into half-inch squares. Her hands were shaking. “I’m not going to leave you, Mom. I don’t—I just--”

Something in Karen deflated. Her anger fled her, and there was nothing to fill the space it left behind. The house was too cold, Katie was too quiet, and everything about Karen’s life was empty without the other half of her family.

She finished making dinner in silence, dished out two plates of chicken fettuccine alfredo, and led Katie to the couch in the living room. The television was on, showing some made-for-TV movie, and Karen muted it. She sat sideways on the couch, her feet stretched out toward Katie, who huddled against the other arm, pushing her pasta around her plate. Karen ate mechanically, the food turning to tasteless rubber in her mouth. There was always a moment after she sat down to eat when she remembered the last dinner they’d had before Matt and Sam left for Kerberos. How happy they all had been, the way Katie’s laughter filled the room.

Sensing the sour mood, Pluto rested his head on Karen’s knee, staring at her with his big, sad eyes until she reached out to scratch his ear. He was Matt’s dog, a graduation gift from Karen and Sam. He’d found out about Kerberos four days later and had named his new dog Pluto in celebration.

Sometimes she wondered whether Pluto understood that his owner wasn’t coming back. He must have sensed Katie and Karen’s grief these last two weeks, as he’d been less rambunctious than normal, choosing instead to hover at the edge of the room, waiting for one of them to reach their rope’s end. That was always when he approached, ready with his own brand of comfort.

With a sigh, Karen set her half-finished dinner on the coffee table and looked up at Katie. She was sullen and red-eyed, but not defeated. She’d inherited her mother’s stubbornness, after all.

“You’re going to do this no matter what, aren’t you?”

Katie looked up, a little too slow to hide her guilt. “I...”

Karen shook her head. She was going to regret this in the morning, but… _I’ll lose her faster if I chase her out the door._ “I still think this is a terrible idea, and we _will_ be discussing this again if you don’t find anything within a few weeks, but.” She drew in a long breath, held it for a moment, then laughed helplessly. “I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if I knew you were doing this on your own. What do you need from me?”

"Birth certificate, mostly." Katie said it like a question, probing the waters to see if Karen was going to take back her offer.

All Karen did was nod. "I'll take care of it. Anything else?"

For a long moment, Katie was perfectly still, staring at Karen with a dropped jaw and a look in her eye like she'd just witnessed a cryptid walking in off the street. In a single motion, Katie tossed her plate on the coffee table, shoved Pluto out of the way, and pounced on Karen. Her arms wrapped around Karen's waist, squeezing almost to the point of suffocation, and she buried her face in Karen’s shoulder.

“Thanks, Mom.”

* * *

One year after the Kerberos disaster, almost to the day, Karen Holt’s world fell apart for a second time.

_A spokesman for the Galaxy Garrison said the accident is still under investigation. It may be several days before any details are made available to the public. What is known is that the incident took place late last night during a training exercise in the desert near the Carlsbad Caverns National Park…_

Karen sat on the couch in her living room, curtains drawn, the only light the glow of the morning news. She’d been here, just like this, a year ago, watching the news coverage of the Kerberos disaster. Iverson had come and gone by then, and Pidge had retreated to their room.

This time the empty house felt ten times bigger. Iverson wouldn’t be by, because Iverson didn’t know Karen Holt had any connection to Pidge Gunderson. Pidge wasn’t upstairs, because they were…

Karen’s breath caught in her throat as new images replaced the shot of the news anchor. The photos were standard Garrison student portraits, used for student IDs and press releases. Three students—three _children—_ dressed in standard-issue Garrison uniforms stood before drab backdrops, smiling.

_We received confirmation that three seventeen-year-old students were killed in the accident. Alejandro “Lance” Mendoza, Hunakai “Hunk” Kahale, and Kyle “Pidge” Gunderson had recently completed their first year of specialized training under the Combat and Exploration Initiative. They were paired together as a three-man squad for exercises like the one that took place last night._

The words washed over Karen, scarcely more than white noise. She didn’t recognize the other two boys’ pictures, though Pidge had mentioned them often enough in their texts and infrequent phone calls. They had very few compliments to spare for their squadmates, but Karen couldn’t summon anything but sympathy and indignant rage on behalf of the two strangers. The grief hovered just out of sight, looming and ominous and abstract. It would come crashing in sooner or later, Karen knew, but denial was a powerful thing, especially with the right kind of reinforcement.

Her phone was warm in her hand, the flashing red LED pleading for a charge. Karen had only been up for a few hours, but she’d spent that time staring at the four-inch screen, watching professional and amateur footage as it cropped up on YouTube, Twitter, and local news sites.

Karen swiped the screen, ignoring the 15% battery warning as she navigated to her text messages.

She had no way to know whether Pidge’s final text had been sent before or after last night’s accident. If the news was right about the location—a debatable assumption, considering they’d blindly regurgitated Pidge’s false name and age—it wasn’t beyond the realm of reason to assume a poor signal. Pidge could have sent the text earlier, only to have it wandering the _no service_ wasteland until their body—and with it their phone—was brought back to civilization.

She didn’t let herself hope too hard for the alternative: that Pidge had survived the supposed accident and sent the text several hours later, once they found safety.

The timing made all the difference, and no difference at all. Karen wasn’t ready to contemplate the likelihood that she’d just lost another child, so she focused on what she knew for a fact. For the second time in less than a year, the Garrison was lying about the disappearance of one of Karen Holt’s family members—and Pidge had finally found their proof.

The words stared up at her from the dark backdrop of the phone screen, dimmed by the device’s power-save mode but still painfully bright in the shadows of her living room. Karen had read them so many times by now they were practically tattooed on her eyelids, but she read it again anyway, trying to wring answers from those seven short words.

_I found him, Mom. I found Matt._

* * *

Three hours later, Karen finally managed to pull herself together enough to shower, throw on a conservative dress and heels, and comb her hair. She put on makeup like camouflage, a mask calculated to hide her Valkyrie’s wrath from the snakes at the Garrison. Let them see nothing more than a mother and wife whose grief had been rekindled by a new tragedy. The lawyer was out for blood, and she didn’t want to give herself away until the right moment.

By now she was intimately acquainted with the administrative building at the Garrison. She’d been there a dozen times over the last year—claiming Sam and Matt’s personal effects, speaking with Iverson and the other higher-ups about the details of the accident that they were keeping out of their damage-control press conferences, and later coming as Karen Holt, Esq., using the threat of legal action to wring more details from the military Tin Men.

She couldn’t help but preen a little at the doomsday grimace with which Iverson greeted her.

“I see you haven’t forgotten me quite yet, Commander,” she said, taking a seat across the desk from him.

“Mrs. Holt. A pleasure, I’m sure. What brings you all the way out here?” Iverson seemed wary, yet utterly baffled by her presence. Good.

Karen had spent the morning thinking. Thinking, and writing. For the first time in a year, the kitchen table was clear of detritus—though in short order it had acquired a fresh veneer of obsession. Everything Karen had learned throwing her legal weight around, everything Pidge had gleaned from Garrison computers, every possibility and implication of the morning’s headline. It was all spread out on the kitchen table, connected with twine and Sharpie arrows and a liberal application of sticky notes. The conspiracy board was a bad habit Sam had spread to the whole family like a particularly virulent case of the flu.

It helped her think.

If there was one thing she was sure of by the end of her arts and crafts session, it was this: Whatever had happened to Pidge last night, Iverson didn’t have their body. An autopsy would have raised red flags that would have led them straight back to Karen Holt and her second child. There would have been an officer at her door before she’d had a chance to hear the news second hand. There would have been questions and threats and maybe, if she was good at lying, there would have been condolences and a boost to her pension to keep her from raising another fuss.

Smiling coolly, Karen let Iverson stew for a moment before she spoke. “I heard about the accident."

Iverson blanched, but he recovered quickly. “Ma’am, that is an internal matter, and I’m afraid I can’t divulge any details until we have completed our investigation.”

“I’m aware.” Karen schooled her features, wearing the bland smile normally reserved for opposing counsel and particularly sleezy Garrison officers who thought they could use her husband as a springboard to the top. Sam always had been too genuine to see the military politics going on around him. “I only stopped by to make sure you still had my card. I’ll be back, of course, but I thought you might spare yourself some pain and deliver your findings to me as soon as they are made available.”

“And why the hell would I want to do that?”

With a flick of her wrist, Karen produced a business card. “The family of one of your dead students contacted me this morning,” she said sweetly. “And as I’m sure you remember, I know how to get answers out of this festering pit of bureaucracy. It’s in your own best interest not to piss me off.”

With that hook set, Karen stood and turned toward the door, counting her steps. Three, four--

“Wait.”

It was nice to know she could still predict Iverson’s self-preservation instinct.

She turned, blinking. “Yes?”

“Which family?” Iverson glared at her business card like he might convince it to tuck tail and run out the door, then turned the full force of his displeasure on her. “Which family are you talking to?”

“Hmm.” Karen ran a thumb along her lower lip, giving Iverson a once-over. He looked tired and stressed. Maybe that was because of the media breathing down his neck. Maybe it was because of all the cover-up he'd had to do to _prepare_ for the media. “Technically, this is a courtesy call, not business. I’m tempted not to tell you, just to see your face—ah, yes. That one. Thank you.” She lifted one shoulder in a shrug as Iverson’s face turned an interesting shade of red. “If you must know… Gunderson.”

Red deepened to an ugly purple, and Karen honestly though Iverson might pop an aneurysm if she taunted him any longer. “Gunderson doesn’t have relatives.”

That teased a laugh out of her, genuine if bitter. “They’re unlisted,” she said. “Incidentally, they also said they’d prefer to avoid direct contact with the bastards who killed their kid—their words, not mine—so from this point on, anything you have for the Gundersons can be delivered to my offices.”

“You—they--” Iverson faltered, positively apoplectic with rage. He still hadn’t figured out how to express himself when shouting orders wasn’t an option “I ought to have to escorted off the property,” he finally managed.

Karen smiled and slung her purse over her shoulder. “No need for that, Commander. Until next time.”

She left the office with an adrenaline-fueled spring in her step. She would have to clear her schedule at work. She couldn’t technically put in for another bereavement period, not as long as she was going to keep up this charade of working for the Gundersons. That was fine, though. Despite returning early from her last bereavement, the last year had been filled with mostly busywork. Her partner would be glad to see her sink her teeth into a case again.

He didn’t need to know how personal this case was.


	2. Eli Kahale

Eli Kahale let out a long, lazy breath as the salt-scented wind dried his hair. “Man, it’s been way too long since I did this.”

Hunk tread water beside him, arms crossed on Eli’s surfboard. He rested his chin on his elbow and grinned up at him. “No kidding. Feels like forever since you visited.” His smile faltered, and he slithered back into the water until his mouth barely showed over the sea foam. “I mean, I know your job takes you all over, and you can’t always get away, so…” He squirmed, smiling shyly up at Eli. “I’m just really glad you’re here.”

“Me too, kiddo.” Eli ruffled his nephew’s hair. Hunk was nine now, two years older and five inches taller than last time Eli had made it out to the islands. He loved his job, and all the places it took him, from the sprawling forests of the Pacific Northwest to the red rock formations of Arizona. He’d even grown fond of the bustle of New York City, despite the cold.

Laughter drew Eli’s attention to the shore, where his sister, Iolana, stood with her wife, Akani. Lana had her surfboard tucked under her arm and was teasing a lock of wet hair away from Akani’s ear. Akani, ever the ticklish one, kept twisting away while trying to stay close to the grill. She struggled for a disapproving frown as she rapped her tongs on Lana’s knuckles, but she couldn’t entirely hide her grin.

“Mom misses you too, you know.” Hunk was back to hanging off the edge of Eli’s board, smiling fondly at his parents. “We tried your lemon pastry recipe a couple months ago, but—well, you know how Mom is in the kitchen, and me and Mama couldn’t get it quite right. I think we’re missing an ingredient or something.”

“That so? Criminal!” Eli raised his voice so the women on the beach were sure to hear him.

An indignant huff rang out. “I don’t know what sort of slander your spreading out there, boys, but I will come out there and kick your—”

“Lana,” Akani said patiently.

“Butt. I was going to say butt.”

Akani sighed. “I’m sure you were.”

Lana grumbled something that, knowing her, was unsafe for nine-year-old ears. And she said Eli was the bad influence in the family.

Hunk rolled his eyes good-naturedly. “She wasn’t going to say butt,” he whispered, and Eli laughed.

“Oh, right. Last time I was out here, I promised I’d teach you to surf, yeah?”

“You did say that, didn’t you...”

Eli raised an eyebrow. “What, your mom already teach you?”

Hesitating, Hunk shook his head. “She offered, but I… I dunno. It looks like it hurts.”

Eli paused, studying his nephew. The Kahales had always been a family of surfers. Lana had learned from their parents when she was eight and had turned around two months later to share her newfound expertise with her five-year-old brother. Eli had nearly drowned, and Lana had been beached for a month, but one measly brush with death wasn’t enough to curtail either of their love for the sea. They were thrill-seekers at heart—though Hunk didn’t seem to have inherited that particular vice.

“If you don’t want to, I won’t make you,” Eli said with a smile, “but it’s not so bad if you have someone to show you what you’re doing.”

Hunk looked up, peering through his wet fringe. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Eli set his hand atop Hunk’s head and smiled. “I won’t let anything bad happen to you, kiddo. That’s a promise.”

* * *

They held the memorial on a hot, blue Saturday in August. The horizon threatened rain, which would have been a welcome change. It was the tail end of a dry summer, and the day would have been miserable even had the occasion been more cheerful.

The kids’ portraits stood at the front of the gathering on three identical easels. Three young, smiling faces that hurt to look at. Eli didn’t know the other two students who had been killed, though Hunk had mentioned them—Lance in particular—during their semi-regular phone calls and Skype chats. The three had been teammates, though, so Eli assumed they’d been close.

Lana and Akani sat beside Eli, Akani’s face hidden in Lana’s long, dark hair. Eli slid his hand around Lana and squeezed Akani’s shoulder. She gave him a thin, grateful smile.

Hunk’s parents hadn’t been to the mainland since he’d moved into the Garrison dormitories nearly two years ago. Akani owned a restaurant and Lana taught high school science, so between the school year and tourist season their schedules rarely synchronized enough for family vacations. When word of the accident arrived, though, they’d dropped everything and booked the first flight to New Mexico. Eli, who had been filming a wedding in California, had left his business partner Rebecca in charge and met his sisters at the airport in Hobbs, seventy miles from the Garrison.

It was, without a doubt, the shittiest family reunion they’d ever had.

The drive had been long, silent, and somber, and when they’d arrived at the hotel and Akani had gone to lie down, Lana had simply wrapped her arms around Eli’s neck and whispered, _Thanks for being here,_ as though there had been a question, as though Eli could have carried on filming weddings and corporate retreats and concerts while his sister buried her son.

There weren’t words to explain what Eli had trapped inside him— _I’m here, I miss him, I_ _wish I’d found more excuses to visit you_ _before now_ _._ So he’d simply returned the embrace and held her until her ragged breathing quieted.

The next day they’d gone to the Garrison to see him, only to learn that the Garrison had already had the bodies cremated. Akani—sweet, patient Akani—had flown into a rage that had left the soldiers pale and shrinking. She was not a slip of a woman—no one in the Kahale family was. Eli was the smallest in the family at five foot eight, a little thinner than Akani but without the burly strength Lana had passed on to Hunk.

So it was impressive that Commander Iverson dared stand up to the raw force of Akani’s anger. Impressive and pitiable, like a puppy nipping at a Great Dane’s ear. Eli felt much the same as he tried to hold his sister-in-law back.

Lana, notably, had made no effort to stop her wife from tearing Iverson a new one.

The folding chairs set up for the memorial took up most of the lawn (if you could call dry, sandy soil a lawn) in front of the Garrison administrative building. Eli suspected they’d made attendance compulsory for all the students in order to fill the seats and look good for the press. He’d filmed enough PR pieces back when he was a freelancer to know how it all worked. _Tight-knit Garrison community gathers to remember fallen peers._ A show of empathy, a good-will gesture to bury the ongoing investigation. No one had to know the whole thing was scripted.

The front two rows had been sectioned off in thirds and reserved for the grieving families, though that made the crowd noticeably back-heavy. Akani was an only child and Eli had never married, so it was just the three of them surrounded by a buffer of empty seats. The chairs to the far left, which had been reserved for the Gundersons, remained conspicuously empty.

The sight of it spawned an ache in Eli’s chest, and he made a mental note to bring flowers for Pidge’s grave whenever he came to visit Hunk. No one deserved to be alone, not even in death.

Only the center section was filled anywhere near capacity, children and teens interspersed with middle-aged relatives and a couple who must have been grandparents. Even without the _reserved_ sign bearing their name, Eli would have recognized them as Lance Mendoza’s family. He’d inherited his mother’s nose, and the twelve-year-old boy sniffling quietly at her side looked like a miniaturized version of the smiling photograph beside the podium.

There wasn’t a dry eye in the Mendoza family, though they each showed their grief differently, from the stone-faced grandmother who seemed determined to ignore the wetness on her cheeks to the father, whose ragged breath was audible even through the handkerchief pressed over his face. Even the young woman in the short, sleeveless black dress sitting behind Lance’s grandparents had tears dripping from her chin as she typed frantically on her phone, pausing only occasionally to shoot the procession of speakers nasty glares as they expounded on the impact the three students had had on their classmates, and how the Garrison would use this tragedy as an opportunity for growth.

The middle-aged woman beside her pinched her arm and frowned when she snapped her head up. “ _Alba Valeria_ ,” she hissed. “Show some respect.”

The young woman—Alba?—scowled. “Mamá, I--”

Alba’s mother dropped her voice low, preventing Eli from eavesdropping further, but eventually Alba sniffed pointedly and slid her phone back into her purse. She spent the rest of the memorial with her arms crossed over her chest, glaring at Lance’s photo and occasionally reaching up to swipe at her cheeks.

When Commander Iverson concluded the service, Alba was the first out of her seat, disappearing toward the parking lot before Eli could work himself up to do anything more demanding than stare at the blue sky and rub circles on the back of Lana’s hand.

“Excuse me.”

Eli dropped his gaze toward the middle-aged woman who had approached them from the back of the dispersing crowd. She spoke in a soft, polite voice, but with surprising confidence for a stranger. She wore a somber black dress that was either new or infrequently used. Her short blonde hair bore the mark of restless, twisting fingers, her mascara was smudged, and her cheeks were splotchy and red beneath her makeup.

“Are you Hunk Kahale’s parents?”

She’d addressed the question to Eli and Lana rather than Lana and Akani—an easy enough mistake to make, but Lana was in no mood for lenience. She very obviously intertwined her fingers with Akani’s, staring the woman dead in the eye. “ _We_ are, yes. This is my brother Eli.”

To her credit, the woman didn’t so much as hesitate, only turned subtly toward Akani and inclined her head. “I’m very sorry for your loss. My name is Karen Holt.” She extended a hand toward Lana, her eyes full of sympathy. Eli frowned at her, wondering why her name sounded familiar. Did she work at the Garrison?

Lana stared at the proffered hand, but it was Akani who finally sighed and shook it. “What can we do for you, Ms. Holt?”

It was here that Karen finally faltered, her gaze drifting toward the administrative building, where Iverson and the rest of the officers had gone. The students had dispersed as well, aside from a few who stayed to talk to the Mendozas or other mourners in the sea of chairs.

“I’m a lawyer at Berkowicz and Holt,” Karen finally said. “I was contacted by the family of Pidge Gunderson. They believe the Garrison is withholding information about the accident. I was hoping to speak with you about--”

Lana rose to her feet, eyes flashing, and took advantage of her six-foot-plus frame to tower over the other woman, who fell abruptly silent.

“I’m going to stop you right there, _ma’am_ , and give you a chance to reconsider the words that are about to come out of your mouth.” Lana’s voice had risen sharply, and it caught the attention of the Mendozas who weren’t already busy accepting condolences from students and civilians.

Akani stood, wrapping her hands around Lana’s elbow. “Lana...”

“I have just buried my son, Ms. Holt, and I have very little patience to spare for the bottom-feeders who call themselves lawyers.”

“ _Lana_ ,” Akani said again, more forcefully but still in an undertone.

Lana shook her off. “If you think you can take advantage of the situation to wring a profit out of a couple of grieving mothers, you will find out _exactly_ how much you have misjudged me—and I promise you won’t come out looking like a politician’s trophy wife.”

“ _Iolana_!”

The Mendozas were openly staring now, their conversations cut short, and Akani flushed crimson, ducking her head so her hair screened her face.

Lana was also red, though Eli didn’t doubt her flush came from the effort of holding her tongue. The look in her eye promised that any further prodding on Karen’s part would set her off, whether or not Akani approved. Fortunately, Karen Holt was sensible enough to keep quiet, looking a bit shell-shocked by Lana’s outburst. Eli figured he should step in before it came to blows, so he pressed the keys to his rental into Lana’s hands and gave Akani a pleading look.

“Why don’t you two go on ahead?” he murmured. “I’ll meet you at the car.”

Lana resisted Akani’s tugs until Eli gave her an encouraging push. Even then, she continued to glare venom at Karen until they reached the corner of the administrative building and disappeared from sight. As soon as they were gone, Karen sagged.

"I’m sorry,” she said. “I assure you, I’m not here for money. I only want to help.”

“I believe you,” Eli said—and he meant it. An opportunistic leech wouldn’t have smudged makeup and shadows under her eyes. Whatever else she was, Karen had legitimately mourned the dead students, and that counted for an awful lot in Eli’s book. “My sister… well, she doesn’t like lawyers much, and losing Hunk has put us all on edge.”

The look Karen gave him was one of true empathy, not awkward pity. “I understand completely.”

Something in her tone resonated with Eli, and he realized abruptly where he’d heard her name before. “Karen Holt… as in Commander Holt? Of the Kerberos mission?”

Karen’s smile wavered. “Holt isn’t a terribly uncommon name, you know,” she said, but she didn’t put much effort into deflecting the question. The Kerberos Mission had been one of last year’s biggest stories, even before its tragic conclusion. Eli had filmed the launch for Hunk’s sake—the boy had been obsessed with all things space since he was five, and he’d been massively disappointed that he hadn’t been allowed to skip class at the Garrison to attend the launch. Eli had made a good chunk of change selling copies of the footage to local news stations in all his usual haunts.

Eli hadn't exactly followed the story, but he'd seen the aftermath of the crash, and while Karen Holt hadn’t spent much time in the spotlight herself, her name had been tossed around the media circus. It seemed every other station was spinning its own sob story about the woman who had lost a husband and a son to the space program, their bodies billions of miles away, lost and alone on a barren moon.

“So I guess you really do have some idea what Lana’s going through,” Eli said. Then, because Karen had that thin, taut air of someone on the verge of collapse, he spread his arms. “You look like you could use a hug.”

A watery laugh escaped her, and she stepped into the embrace, lingering for a short moment before she straightened, wiped her eyes on a tissue, and took a deep breath. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. What was it you wanted to talk about?”

Karen met his eyes for a long moment, seeming to debate her options before she answered. “There may be a chance those three students are still alive.” All Eli could do in response to that was stare, and Karen, seeing his skepticism, continued. “I know how it sounds, but I know for a fact there was no training exercise that night. A message was sent from Pidge Gunderson’s phone indicating they found something the Garrison didn’t want them to see.”

 _Alive._ The word pounded in his head like a cannon ball. He thought of Hunk, nine years old and terrified of his surfboard, his eyes big and round as he looked to Eli for reassurance. He thought of Hunk, twelve years old and laughing as he chased Eli out into the surf. If he was alive…

He cut that line of thought off before it could start. “Sorry. You— _what_? Did I hit my head and sleepwalk onto the set of a spy thriller?”

“Like I said, I know how it sounds--”

“It sounds like the sort of thing you’d find on a relic chat board next to pictures of the Loch Ness Monster.” Eli ran a hand through his hair, shaking his head. He tamped down on that corner of his mind that was desperate enough for a happy ending to ignore the facts. No good would come of that. “Look, if the Gundersons want to pursue this, that’s their business, but if you care as much as I think you do, you’ll keep this sort of talk away from my sister. I don’t want her to break your nose.”

Karen’s lips thinned into a grim line. “Please, Mr. Kahale--”

“Eli.”

“Eli.” Karen nodded. “I’ve seen this message myself, and it’s very telling. Whatever happened that night was _not_ a training exercise. At the very least we’re dealing with a coverup, and while the Garrison is full of politicking bastards with more ambition than human decency, I’m not convinced they’d murder three students to keep a secret. More likely they’re holding those kids somewhere—and I intend to find out where.”

Eli wanted so badly to believe Karen’s story, but he knew once he started down that path, there would be no peace. There would always be more doubts, more so-called proof, and he’d never lay Hunk to rest. What he needed—what Lana and Akani needed—was closure. Not...this. “Well if you find anything, be sure to let me know.” He turned to leave, but Karen grabbed his sleeve to stop him.

“Wait,” she said, breathless. Eli couldn’t resist the plea in her voice. He turned. “I believe we can save them. I _do_. But I can’t do it alone. That was why I wanted to speak with you. If you would just--”

Eli held up a hand to stop her before his emotions got the better of him. “I can’t,” he said through a tightness in his chest. “I’m sorry.”

To his surprise, Karen didn’t press him, just dug a business card out of her pocket and handed it to him with a hollow smile. “If you change your mind, give me a call.”

Eli raised the business card like a toast, slid it into his shirt pocket, then turned and walked away.

* * *

Two days later, Lana and Akani flew back to Hawaii. Eli’s flight to California wasn’t for another ten hours, so he dropped them at Departures, then took himself out to lunch. New Mexico was a nice enough state, pleasantly warm and vibrant in a way you didn’t see many other places, but Eli doubted he’d ever be able to come back without thinking of his nephew. Karen Holt’s theories stuck in his mind, keeping him up the last several nights with tantalizing what-ifs. What if she was right? What if Hunk was alive? What if they were holding him somewhere? He would be scared; Eli had always worried that Hunk’s anxiety would hold him back in the cutthroat world of the Galaxy Garrison, but detainment, possibly interrogation, would be many times worse.

If Karen was right, shouldn’t Eli be doing everything in his power to help her?

He didn’t mention any of this to Lana or Akani, of course. Bad enough he had to deal with impossible hopes and the guilt over imagined offenses. He wouldn’t dream of dumping that on his sisters’ shoulders. Still...

He pushed his food around his plate, his appetite shriveling up in the afternoon heat. Figuring there was no point wasting time and money on ineffective distractions, he headed for the car. He could wait at the airport as well as at a restaurant or department store, and with fewer well-meaning strangers asking if he needed anything. As he took his phone out of his pocket to set it in the cupholder, he saw that he’d missed a call from Rebecca confirming his arrival time so she could pick him up at LAX. Eli deleted the voice mail, fully intending to open his texts and shoot her a reply.

The sight of an older voice mail stopped him.

Throat constricting, Eli pressed play and held the phone up to his ear.

“ _Hey, Uncle Eli!_ _I just remembered you had a thing to shoot today, so that’s probably why your phone’s off. I was just calling cause Lance is spending the day with his family, so I figured I might do the same. Gonna call the Moms next, but if you get a chance, maybe we could still talk? I’ll, uh, I’ll probably be up late, so you don’t have to worry about waking me up or anything. So, uh… yeah. Miss you,_ _love you, hope your thing goes well. ..._ _Bye!_ ”

Hunk’s voice left Eli breathless, one hand pressed to his eyes in a futile effort to keep the tears at bay. That call had been two weeks before the accident. Eli had gone out for a beer with the crew after the gig, and by the time he remembered to turn his phone on, it was two in the morning in New Mexico, and even Hunk would have to complain about a tipsy uncle calling him at that hour. He’d saved the message, intending to return the call the next day, but somehow he only ever remembered it when he didn’t have time to talk.

If he’d known the voice mail was the last time he’d hear Hunk’s voice, maybe he would have _made_ time.

Swearing under his breath, Eli sent a text to Rebecca telling her there’d been a change of plans, then popped the trunk and dug through his suitcase for the shirt he’d worn to the memorial. He was going to regret this; he knew that, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Hunk had never complained about Eli’s busy schedule keeping him away for months, even years at a time. He was just as happy to get a phone call on his birthday as a visit. Eli had a New Year’s resolution eight years running to be better about family time, but he’d never figured out how to make it stick.

Maybe it was too late now, but he’d be damned if he walked away from this. Any chance, however remote, was worth it. For Hunk, it was worth it.

The phone rang twice before Karen Holt picked up. She’d barely finished her greeting before Eli spoke, squeezing out the words before he thought better of it. “Karen? It’s Eli Kahale. I… I changed my mind. I want to help.”


	3. Akira Shirogane

Akira stared at the nameplates affixed to his new dorm room at the Garrison with something akin to awe. The first read _Takashi Shirogane_ , and right there below it: _Akira Shirogane._ It was a small thing, and he was probably more exhausted from the flight out than he thought if something like this had him close to tears, but there it was. Maybe Akira was a sentimental loser, but he was a sentimental loser who’d made it into the Galaxy Garrison.

“I’m telling you, you should have gone with Sven.”

Akira didn’t turn toward the voice, just lobbed his bookbag over his shoulder at his brother. From the grunt and subsequent thud, Akira had aimed his toss well, and he allowed himself a quick peek over his shoulder. Takashi lay in the middle of the hallway surrounded by books and underwear, his Garrison-branded baseball cap sitting crooked on his head.

Akira laughed despite himself. “You actually _brought_ the hat?”

Takashi straightened it, pouting. “I promised Dad I would.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to wear it,” Akira said. Takashi looked offended and, rolling his eyes, Akira held out a hand to help him up. “You’re going to be the teacher’s pet from now until graduation, aren’t you?”

Takashi at least had the decency to look sheepish, taking off the hat just long enough to comb his hair out of his eyes. Standing, he was a good three inches taller than Akira, despite being twenty minutes younger. Akira had almost surpassed him for about six months when they were thirteen, but then Takashi had hit a growth spurt and left Akira in the dust. He was taller, stronger, and much closer to the quintessential Garrison Dorito shape than Akira would ever be. Strangers often assumed Takashi was the one who got into fist fights—and he _had_ handed out his fair share of black eyes, but only ever after Akira was spitting blood from a fight he absolutely should have stayed out of.

They gathered up the scattered books and boxers and brought it all into their room, where everything else was already piled in various states of disarray. Takashi’s bed was made; Akira’s was piled high with boxes. Akira’s half of the closet was full (and spilling over into Takashi’s), shirts and slacks and blazers hanging on the rack, socks and underwear and binders in the dresser below; Takashi’s clothes were mounded over the back of his desk chair like some kind of cotton-blend swamp monster had decided to bunk with them.

Akira made a halfhearted attempt to organize his books—mostly reference texts and a few sci fi classics, his school books still lost somewhere in the miasma on his bed—then moaned and flopped backwards onto Takashi’s comforter. “Is it lights out yet?” he asked, pulling Takashi’s pillow over his head.

A soft laugh wormed its way through the stuffing. “Akira, it’s only four o’clock.”

“In the _morning_?”

“In the afternoon. Did you think we skipped dinner?”

“I don’t know,” Akira said, fluttering a hand in the general direction of Takashi’s voice. “We spent the last seventeen hours in airports. Time has lost all meaning.”

The cheap, standard-issue mattress deflated as Takashi sat on the edge of the bed and tugged the pillow away from Akira’s face. “Okay, first of all? It was six hours.”

Akira scoffed. “Who are you, the time police?”

“ _Second_ ,” Takashi said, gracefully ignoring the interruption, “I’ll make you a deal. We finish unpacking, and I’ll go see if the cooks will let me bring dinner back to the room. Sound good?”

For a moment, Akira held out. He wasn’t _that_ hungry, and they still had two days before classes started. He could afford to be lazy tonight, couldn’t he? But Takashi was giving him that obnoxious puppy-dog pout, and Akira felt his resolve weakening. He shoved Takashi’s face away, groaning. “Are you sure you’re sixteen, Takashi? Because I’m pretty sure you’re secretly sixty.”

“We’re twins, genius.”

“I dunno. This could be some _Seventeen Again_ bullshit. I’m Tia, you’re Tamera, and we’ve got to find a kid genius to turn you old again before you die.”

Takashi tried to hide his smile, as if he could hide anything from Akira, then gave in and threw the pillow at Akira. “How, exactly, am I the old man when you’re the one making pop culture references from the turn of the century?”

“Hey, that wasn’t _that_ long before we were born.”

Takashi raised an eyebrow in silent judgment.

Akira grinned and forced himself up from the bed. Takashi was probably right. These bed were way too small for sharing, and Akira knew he’d be pissed at himself if he woke up tomorrow to a couple hours of compulsory organization. Better to just get it over with now.

People kept telling Akira and Takashi that rooming together was a bad idea. That it would be enough of a strain competing against each other for a spot in the fighter pilot program without spending every waking moment together. Which just showed how little people knew about Akira _or_ Takashi. First of all, Takashi was a literal saint, and Akira didn’t want to imagine how badly he’d have to screw up to make Takashi hate him. Secondly, Akira wasn’t aiming for fighter pilot, so there was no competition to be had.

Oh, sure, Akira wanted to fly. His father had his license, and he’d taken his sons up in Cessnas and the occasional Grumman from the day they were big enough to see out the windows. But Akira was content in the air. It was Takashi who wanted to see the stars, to fly to distant planets. It was Takashi who dreamed of making fighter pilot, the first prerequisite for selection for an exploration mission. It was Takashi who had taught himself physics and calculus at fourteen years old so he’d be ready for the cutthroat world of the Galaxy Garrison.

It was Takashi who had convinced Akira to train here, telling him Garrison pilots—even cargo pilots—had more opportunities than someone who’d learned to fly on a little airfield out in the Midwest.

The truth was,Takashi was here for the Garrison, but Akira was here for Takashi. He didn't mind with living in Takashi’s shadow, just as long as it meant seeing his brother happy.

* * *

Akira was tired.

Four years at the academy, two more of specialized training—code-breaking, stealth, defensive flying, wilderness survival—and then a four year contract shuttling delicate equipment to secret Garrison outposts all across the planet. Ten years, all told, since he and his brother had first set foot on Garrison grounds, but it might as well have been twenty, or maybe fifty.

There was another letter from his parents waiting for him when he returned from his latest assignment. _Jii-chan speaks of you often. He’s still tired_ _more days than not_ _, but we have hope for the year to come._

Akira flung the letter down on the desk without finishing it. He’d averaged less than five hours of sleep a night for the last two weeks, ever since he left to collect sensitive machinery from Garrison-sponsored factories in Brazil, France, Sweden, and South Korea. He’d already been up for twelve hours today, and it was barely noon in New Mexico. His neck hurt, his head pounded from eye strain and dehydration, and he still had an appointment with Iverson in two hours. He did _not_ need to deal with another one of his father’s guilt trips.

Well, no, that wasn’t fair. His father was worried about him, and the whole family—aside from Akira himself—shied away from confrontation, but his parents meant well. On his more charitable days, Akira could admit to himself that the letters weren’t about convincing Akira to come home. His parents just wanted him to know they were thinking of him.

With a heavy sigh, Akira slumped into the hard, utilitarian chair beside the desk. He’d been isolating himself, slowly but surely, for the last year. Longer than that, truth be told, but before the Kerberos disaster, it had been coincidental. His busy schedule, combined with the intensive training Takashi undertook with the rest of the _Persephone’s_ crew, meant there was little to do in Carlsbad. He made the trip up to Ohio twice a year to see his parents, and in between he toured the world, content to get his feet off the ground and soar out of reach of the petty masses down below.

Then Takashi had gone missing (died) and the Garrison had held a memorial to honor him (blame him) and Akira had entered free-fall. They said it was pilot error, but Akira knew his brother. Takashi was the best pilot the Garrison had. The best pilot in the _world_ , probably—and that wasn’t just the bias of a twin. Their first year at the Garrison, Takashi had flown like an upperclassman. By graduation, he’d beaten every seasoned pilot who challenged him in the simulator. He’d been assigned to copilot a mission to the International Space Station just weeks after graduation, and had joined the Kerberos mission as the youngest solo pilot in history.

Whatever had happened to the _Persephone_ , it wasn’t pilot error.

But Akira had learned to keep his mouth shut and his head down. The Garrison didn’t take backtalk lightly, and Takashi wasn’t there to bail Akira out of whatever legal hot water he might land himself in. Akira had a year left on his contract when Takashi disappeared, so he’d taken on more assignments, harder assignments, more remote assignments, anything to keep his thoughts off the missing ship—and to keep the rumor mill off his radar. He figured two sensationalist reporters with broken noses was already pushing his luck.

Six months ago, Akira’s grandfather had been diagnosed with lung cancer, and his parents had moved back to Japan to help care for him. His father had been telling him since Takashi’s disappearance to get out of the Garrison, never mind his contract wasn’t up, and jii-chan’s cancer was just another hook in Akira’s skin.

 _The Garrison doesn’t have a foothold in Japan,_ Akira’s father had said. _Come here. They won’t be able to punish you for leaving._

Akira resisted, not out of fear of retribution—he wasn’t _technically_ a soldier, so it wasn’t _technically_ desertion, not that the Garrison would be any happier about a broken contract—but because he wasn’t ready to face his grief. He knew Takashi was dead. Whatever had really happened out at the edge of the solar system, the odds of the crew surviving for a full year without supplies or support from Earth were vanishingly small. But it was easy to convince himself otherwise when he was stacking crates in Egypt or flying over the emerald sea of the Amazon or fighting icy winds in Siberia.

Back home with his parents, watching jii-chan waste away, the reality of his loss would be inescapable.

Akira had put it off as long as he could, but this assignment had been the last on his contract. It was time to hand in his resignation. He’d already booked a flight to Osaka, and he planned to call his parents after his meeting with Iverson—there was no need to wake them at four in the morning, though Akira was sure his father would be thrilled, whatever the time.

A knock on the door startled him out of his thoughts. The clock showed he still had an hour until he was supposed to meet with Iverson, and most everyone else on the grounds would be in class now. Akira spent little enough time in the States that it didn’t make sense to rent an apartment. He’d stayed with Takashi before Kerberos, and ever since—well, he’d just crashed in the temporary quarters at the Garrison. God knew they always had room to spare.

Akira opened the door to reveal a familiar face, albeit one he hadn’t seen in nearly a year.

“Mrs. Holt,” he said, surprised. “Hi.”

“Hello, Akira,” she said with a fond smile. “I heard you were back in town.”

“I—yeah. I just got in a couple hours ago. What…? Why…?” He faltered, too tired to figure out a way to ask _What are you doing here?_ without sounding rude.

Karen just smiled and invited herself in. A middle-aged Polynesian man followed her, nodding to Akira. “This is Eli,” Karen said. They made for a strange pair: short, compact Karen in her pearls and flawless makeup; and Eli, who was in all ways average. Average height, average build, a short-sleeved collared blue shirt and jeans, a wary look in his eyes as he surveyed the room.

“Hi,” Akira said to Eli. “Sorry, what are you doing here?”

Karen glanced at Eli, who closed the door and leaned against it. He didn’t look like he meant to be intimidating, but Akira felt himself tense for a fight anyway, though he doubted Karen had come here to make trouble. They’d met in the aftermath of shared loss, and while that didn’t lend itself to happy memories, Karen had made dinner for Akira on more than one occasion, had let him crash at her house when he needed somewhere to shut himself away from the world. They weren’t exactly friends, but they were friendly, tied together by the worst moment in both their lives.

Karen took a seat in the vacated desk chair, somehow managing to make it look like a throne. She crossed her legs at the ankle and folded her hands on her knee, holding Akira’s gaze with a steely one of her own. “The Garrison is covering up something about the Kerberos mission. Pidge was investigating. They found something. I think your brother’s crew is still alive.”

She said it without pause and with very little inflection, like she’d rehearsed the short speech so many times it had lost its meaning. Akira stared at her, speechless. Where did he even begin? The Kerberos mission? A coverup? A fourteen-year-old investigating? He floundered for a moment, mouth moving soundlessly, before Eli took pity on him.

“I don’t know if you’d’ve heard, being out of the country and all, but last week there was an accident involving three students. Karen’s kid, my nephew, and their pilot. Iverson says they’re dead, but—well--”

“Pidge is  _dead_?” Akira asked, his breath stagnating in his aching chest.

Karen’s eyes fluttered shut. “No.” She pulled out her phone, swiped the screen a few times, then handed it to Akira. “They texted me the night of the supposed accident.”

The words on the screen stared up at him, unintelligible for several long seconds. _I found him._ Impossible. _I found Matt._ It was—impossible. Akira’s mind stuck on that one thought, repeating it on endless loop. Matt was… Matt Holt was…

Dead.

Missing.

Lost.

Matt Holt was with Takashi, frozen on a rock half an eternity away.

“How?” he asked.

Karen reached out to take his hand, smiling sympathetically. “I don’t know. That’s why we came here.”

“Iverson’s hiding something,” Eli said. “My nephew could still be alive. Your _brother_ could still be alive. We’re looking for them.”

“But we need you,” Karen said.

“Me? Why?”

“Iverson knows me.” Karen sat back, tapping her nails on her phone case. “He’s not going to give me anything he doesn’t have to, and Eli’s chances aren’t much better. Their guard is up about last week’s accident, and anyone involved in it is getting stonewalled. We need someone with inside access.”

Akira’s mouth ran dry. He wanted to say no. His contract was up. His family was waiting for him in Japan. He looked between Karen and Eli, his head pounding with all the reasons to say no.

_I found Matt._

“Could you… give me a day to think about it?” he finally managed. “This is—this is half a step short of treason, what you’re asking.”

“I know,” Karen said. “And I wouldn’t ask it if it wasn’t the only way.” She stood, pulling him into an embrace. It reminded him of the dark days after he’d first heard about the Kerberos mission. Cold showers and warm food and silent houses filled with mourning families. Karen had been there for Akira when he needed it most. Didn’t he owe her the same courtesy?

 _Since when is treason a courtesy?_ he wondered.

Karen handed him a piece of paper with her number and an address he vaguely remembered from a year prior. “Let me know what you decide, and...” She paused, tucking a lock of hair behind his ear. “Get some sleep, Akira. You look exhausted.”

* * *

The crew of the _Persephone_ had limited communication with Earth, especially once they landed on Kerberos, but they were able to send and receive emails, routed through Mission Control, once per day. It had been a pain, but Akira had kept up with it, packing as much as he could into his fifty kilobyte allotment. Sometimes it was a thumbnail or two from his latest day-trip in Greece or Thailand, sometimes ten pages of childhood reminiscing. _Aren’t you bored out there without me, Takashi?_

Honestly, Akira remembered very little of what he’d sent. To him it was mundane, though Takashi assured him the slivers of home helped him get through the long, lonely days away from Earth.

More than his own messages, Akira remembered Takashi’s. He’d saved every email because he figured Takashi might one day like to look back at the Kerberos mission, and his emails were as good as any journal. Better, because Akira had seen Takashi’s attempt at a diary, and it read like the minutes from a congressional hearing on dry porridge. No, in the emails Takashi was vibrant, excited, _alive_. He spoke of the stars, brighter and more numerous on Kerberos than anywhere on Earth. He spoke of the experiments they were doing—and somehow he made ice chips and chemical analysis sound exciting. He spoke of his crew, Matt and Samuel Holt, and how they’d become a second family to him, how he hoped Akira liked them as much as Takashi did, and wouldn’t it be nice to have dinner when they all got back, the Shiroganes and the Holts together under one roof?

By the time Pidge Holt and their friends disappeared, Akira had read the emails so many times he could quote large passages from memory. Still, he went back to them after Karen left, searching for… for what? Not hope; he’d lost that somewhere between the Baltic Sea and the anniversary of Takashi’s death-disappearance-indeterminate loss. He supposed he was just looking for direction, the way he’d always gone to his brother when he didn’t know what to do.

He wasn’t expecting to get an answer, but he found it at the end of a long email from just a few days before loss of contact.

 _Matt and I talked the other day,_ Takashi wrote. _He told me he had trouble sleeping for the first three weeks of the mission because he was afraid of something going wrong. It’s easy to remember all the safety measures the Garrison’s put in place during the day, but at night, with the big, dark, silent void all around, you start to think. What if we don’t make it home? What if we die out here? Things like that. It terrified Matt, thinking that he’d never see the rest of his family again._

_He asked me if I ever got scared, and I didn’t know how to answer him. I’ve thought about it a lot since then, but I haven’t figured out how to put it into words, because... Of course I’m scared. The universe is so big, and we’re so small, and a mistake that wouldn’t be a big deal on Earth could mean everything out here. There’s no backup, no instructor ready to pull the plug if the simulation goes south._

_Remember when we were kids, and Dad used to take us up in the Cessna and let us put our hands on the controls? And one day, he let go. I knew he was right there, that nothing was going to happen. Heck, I didn’t have to **do** anything, just sit there and hold her steady, but I could feel the empty space beneath us, and I knew I had the power in my hands to get us all killed. Even though I knew Dad wouldn’t let that happen, I still felt the weight of that responsibility._

_That’s the kind of fear I feel out here. I’m not afraid something **will** go wrong, but I know that Matt and Sam have put their lives in my hands, and I want to make sure I live up to that trust._

_Of course, this is space, so there’s always the potential for freak accidents. An asteroid hitting our ship, or a malfunction in our suits, or, I don’t know. Aliens. The kinds of things you don’t see coming. The things that would kill us, and it wouldn’t be anyone’s fault. I think that’s what scares Matt, but… not me. It’s weird, but I’m not afraid of dying. Getting the Holts killed, yes. Absolutely. But dying myself? The thought doesn’t bother me. I believe in what we’re doing. I believe this mission has value, even if it ends in tragedy. If I don’t make it home, I know there are others who will carry on in our footsteps. “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” I always figured I was the ordinary guy standing on those shoulders, but if we die, maybe someday people will look back at us and say the crew of the Persephone paved the way to greatness. We took humanity farther than it had ever been. We were the shoulders the next generation will stand on as they reach for bigger and better things._

_I don't know. I think that’s pretty cool._

Akira closed out of his email, and the faces of the three missing cadets smiled up at him from the Garrison’s media page, where images from the memorial still took center stage. Takashi was gone. Akira had known that for a long time, however reluctant he’d been to accept it. But these three kids—they’d only been missing for two weeks. Lance Mendoza, Hunk Kahale, Pidge Holt. There was still a chance for them. If he were here, Takashi would have done everything in his power to bring them home. He wouldn’t have rested until he saw them reunited with their families.

Takashi wasn’t here, but Akira was.

He glanced at the clock. Ten minutes till his appointment with Iverson. Akira ran a hand through his hair, wondering what he was getting himself into. Espionage, to put it simply. It was outrageous. It was absurd. It was… it was everything Akira had lived for, once upon a time.

Letting out an incredulous laugh, Akira stood and headed for the administrative building. He’d have to cancel his flight, have to hope Iverson agreed to let him spend his next contract in Carlsbad. Maybe he could take on some classes, train up the next generation of cargo pilots. Takashi would get a kick out of that. Akira, Mr. Bad Influence himself, in charge of malleable young recruits.

It might actually be fun.


	4. Val Mendoza

“I cannot believe someone actually made _you_ a fighter pilot.”

Lance gave Val a look of pure betrayal. “Excuse _you_ , Prima Donna. I happen to be a _great_ pilot.” He buffed his fingernails on the front of his orange uniform, smirking in that self-satisfied way that always made Val want to rub his nose in his dinner. “I always knew they’d come to their senses sooner or later.”

“Nuh-uh.”

Lance rounded on his eight-year-old sister, Luz, who wore pink jeans under her fancy white dress—which, Val couldn’t help but notice, already had grass stains on the skirt, though they’d only arrived home from the commencement ceremony fifteen minutes ago. “What do you mean nuh-uh?”

Luz stuck a carrot stick in her mouth and bit it off with a crunch that made Lance twitch. Val flashed the girl a thumbs-up behind Lance’s back. “I _mean_ I heard you and Mamá talking before school started, and you were _crying_ because you were gonna get stuck as a _cargo pilot_ for- _ever_ and--”

Lance clapped his hand over Luz’s mouth. “O-kay, that’s enough out of you. Heh. Kids,” he said to Val, who stuck a hand on her hip and watched with a wry smile as Lance’s brother, Mateo, climbed atop the stool behind him, his face promising trouble.

Across the room, Tía Rosario pointed a warning finger his direction. “Ah-ah-ah. I don’t think so, _mijo_! Down. Before you--”

Lance started to turn toward the sound of his mother’s voice, but he didn’t make it halfway before Mateo leaped with a cry of, “Meteor Wing!”

“Augh!” Lance cried, scrambling to catch Mateo before he fell—or strangled Lance. He didn’t quite succeed on either count, but he did break Mateo’s fall with his stomach. Groaning, he flopped backward on the kitchen floor, hands automatically rising to steady the ten-year-old terror bouncing on his gut. Luz decided this was a game she was missing out on and joined the dogpile, her knees hitting Lance’s chest so he shot up and got a hair-full of ranch-coated carrot sticks. “ _Lu-uz_ ,” he whined, coughing slightly as Luz, too, began to bounce. “Look at what you did to my hair!”

She looked down at him, a thoughtful look on her face, then used her carrot stick to draw a ranch-flavored mustache on her brother’s lip.

Val laughed into her hand as Lance writhed, trying in vain to take Luz’s carrot sticks away. “The future of our military, ladies and gentlemen,” Val said.

Lance tipped his head back so Val had a clear view of him sticking his tongue out at her.

“Very mature, Fighter Pilot.”

“Easy for you to say. You don’t have two sacks of bony sugar highs trying to give you CPR.”

Val glanced across the room at her brother. One year in UCLA’s Classical Literature program and he was already doing his best impression of the reclusive professor, his entire six-foot frame curled up on half a couch cushion, nose buried in a seventh-hand copy of something Val had never heard of. “Yeah, no, I think I won the Mendoza sibling lottery,” she admitted, smiling fondly as Sebastian blinked owlishly up at Tía Rosario, who was offering him a bowl of chips. “I mean, not that I didn’t drag him into roughhousing on a regular basis, but the worst he ever gave was being an insatiable tattle-tale.”

Lance hooked a finger into the laces of Val’s boots and tugged, drawing her attention back to his silent plea for help.

Sighing, Val grabbed Mateo under the arms and lifted him to his feet. He squirmed until she let go, then sprinted across the room to rescue his 3DS from the hands of another curious cousin. With the odds evened, Lance quickly subdued Luz with a bit of well-placed tickling. She shrieked with laughter as Lance blew a raspberry on her bare arm, twisted out of his hold, then brandished her thoroughly ruined carrot stick snack to ward him off.

Lance raised himself into a crouch, grinning. “All right, you little carrot demon. You wanna play?”

Luz nodded enthusiastically. Then, with a devious grin that would put any older Mendoza to shame, she darted forward and poked Lance in the forehead with her carrot stick. “Tag, you’re it!” She took off running before Lance had a chance to recover.

He glared up at Val, who was once more failing to stifle her laughter. “Keep it up and I’m revoking your interview rights.”

Val gasped. “You wouldn’t _dare_.”

“I dunno, you’ve been kind of mean to me lately.”

“I’m still your favorite cousin.”

Lance rubbed at his ranch dressing mustache, smearing it onto his nose. “Nope. Nuh-uh. Not any more. That’s Sebastian now. You forfeited the title when you impugned my honor.”

“Ooh, good word.” Val twirled a lock of curly hair around her finger. “You should use it when you let Sebastian interview you about Dante and Virgil and Euchypides.”

“You made that last one up.”

“Did I?” Val batted her eyelashes. “I guess you could always ask Sebastian during your interview. You _could_ be talking about piloting and the space program and all your most impressive moments, but...” She lifted one shoulder, grinning at Lance as he pushed himself to his feet. “You’d really have to go to a journalist for that.”

Lance snorted. “Journalist? More like gossip columnist.”

“Not if I have exclusive interview rights for the Garrison’s newest rising star.”

The pout that had been growing on Lance’s face dissolved into a pleased flush, and he preened a little before looping an arm around Val’s shoulder. “You know something, Prima Donna? I like the way you think.”

* * *

Lance Mendoza (@GuapoDeLaGuarnicion) – Aug 12  
Fighter pilots = space pilots. Coincidence??? #AliensAreReal #Iwanttobelieve

Lance Mendoza (@GuapoDeLaGuarnicion) – Aug 12  
okay ppl it was a joke. my comms off is the conspiracy theorist on this squad, not me lol

Val lingered in her car longer than she should have, scrolling down Lance’s Twitter. Funny how just two weeks ago, she’d rolled her eyes and lectured Lance on Skype about how social media could turn into tabloid fodder if he didn’t watch himself. Not that she was worried about her cousin being the laughing stock of the space business, of course; that was practically inevitable. She just wanted to hoard all the juicy bits until she could use them to launch her own career into orbit.

Now…

Well, now there was nothing professional about her obsession with Lance’s final tweets. She just missed him.

When she’d gotten a handle on herself, she stepped out of her car and headed for the front door. Her aunt and uncle’s house looked lonely without three or four rentals in the driveway as there had been for the last two weeks. By now Tía Rosa’s family had all returned to Cuba, Sebastian was back at UCLA, and Val’s grandparents only spent every _other_ day with Lance’s family, alternating with Val’s parents. Today, it seemed, was her parents’ turn.

Val didn’t bother knocking as she entered; it had never been a requirement in the Mendoza family, and the last few weeks had upgraded it to a capital offense—no one had wanted to get up and answer the door every five minutes. Luz tackled Val two steps inside the door, her thin arms wrapping around Val’s waist and squeezing until her spine popped. The ten-year-old didn’t say anything, just held onto Val like she was afraid to lose her. She’d been like this since the accident—quiet and clingy, always on the verge of tears.

Throat tight, Val rubbed Luz’s back and waddled with her out to the living room. Tía Rosa and Val’s mother sat on the couch flipping through photo albums, the coffee table covered in a layer of macaroni art. Tío Ramon held a cup of coffee in one hand, and in the other, a drawing of Lance and… Val thought it was supposed to be her, but only because she couldn’t remember Lance having any curly-haired friends who liked dresses.

“Why is my skin _blue_?” Val asked, taking the seat beside her uncle’s and letting Luz climb up on her lap.

Tío Ramon laughed, setting the drawing on the table. Val stared at it, but made no move to pick it up. She and Lance stood on a red circle that was probably supposed to be Mars, a lumpy black-and-orange spaceship beside them.

“I think you’re cold,” Tía Rosa said, smiling faintly at the picture. “They learned about space in class that day. That was when he decided he was going to be a pilot.”

She was starting to tear up again, and Val knew if she started crying they would all lose it. She moved the conversation along before that could happen. “Okay, but _he’s_ not blue.”

Tía Rosa sniffed, forcing a smile. “Yes, well, _he_ remembered his scarf.”

Val leaned forward, squinting. Sure enough, there was a green scribble at the height of Lance’s nonexistent neck, complete with gravity-defying tails. Val laughed, tears pressing at the back of her eyes. That still happened with alarming frequency. Whenever she saw her family, it seemed to end in tears. There was laughter, too, more often as they made it further from the day their whole word fell apart, and Val did everything she could to push her visits toward the happier end of the emotional spectrum. She wished she could say she did it for her aunt and uncle's sake, but in reality she just didn't think she would have been able to endure these visits without a healthy dose of humor.

She flicked the end of Luz’s pigtail, frowning at the empty space on the couch. “Where’s Mateo?”

Tía Rosa and Tío Ramon exchanged glances and Val’s mother stared at her lap. The scent of meat and spice in the kitchen spoke to Val’s father’s location, but she didn’t hear the telltale chatter to suggest Mateo was in there with him.

Luz tugged on Val’s sleeve, and when Val looked down she pointed at the stairs. Val’s heart sunk, but she plastered on a fake smile and stood, settling Luz on her hip. “Right. Wanna come find your brother with me, little light?”

Luz shrugged, which was good enough for Val.

They found Mateo in Lance’s room. He sat on the floor beside Lance’s bed, which was perfectly made and undisturbed, his knit afghan folded at the foot. Mateo had turned on Lance’s relic of a PS2 and was playing a pinball game Val recognized as one of Lance’s favorites. Val had entered high scores on every table, and it had taken years of banning her from the game for Lance to place ahead of her. (Mostly. Val was pretty sure she still held the top spot on the space-themed table, which was, according to Lance, “the objective best.”)

Val watched, silent, from the doorway as Mateo finished the table. Before the game could finish tallying his score, Mateo quietly reached forward and reset the system.

The tears took Val by surprise and she sat down hard on the bed, jostling Luz, who stared up at her with big, wet eyes. “Sorry,” Val whispered, tugging on her pigtail. She forced a smile, ignoring the wet tracks on her cheeks. The game reached the title screen, but Mateo didn’t press any buttons. He just sat there, straight-backed, refusing to look her way.

“Lance’d kill me if I ruined his scoreboards,” Mateo whispered.

Val had promised herself she wasn’t going to say anything to the rest of the family. Not until she was sure. Not until she had proof. But she couldn’t sit here while Lance’s brother and sister were hurting like this. She _couldn’t_. Closing her eyes she patted the bed beside her.

“Come up here for a second, Mateo. I have something to tell you.”

Luz looked up at her, worried and confused and still so, _so_ quiet, and Val squeezed her once. Mateo hesitated for a second before standing. He sat beside Val, but kept his gaze on his socks.

Val looked at them both. They were so young--ten and twelve years old. So young, yet old enough. Old enough to know what had happened, old enough to miss the daily phone calls and biweekly dinners and occasional weekend trips or game nights or movie dates. Lance had never once let his training come before his family, so his absence was a big, gaping, vicious thing that hit them all constantly with reminders of what they'd lost.

Val was done holding her tongue.

“You two have to promise you won’t tell this to anyone, not even your mom and dad. Not until I tell you it's okay. Can you do that?”

Luz nodded at once, but Mateo frowned, finally looked at Val. “How come?”

“Because.” Val hesitated. “Because grown-ups need proof before they’ll believe anything, and I’m still working on finding that proof.”

“Proof of what?” Mateo asked, his voice hushed.

Val took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Lance isn’t dead.”

Luz jerked like Val had dumped cold water on her and Mateo’s eyes went wide. “But the officer said--”

“I know,” Val said. “I know. He was lying.”

“But--”

“ _Alba Valeria!_ ”

Val froze, ice flooding her veins at the sound of her aunt’s voice, cold and hard and riddled with fissures like she was halfway to crying—or inches from screaming until Val’s ears bled. Slowly, Val turned toward the trembling figure in the doorway. Tía Rosa was not a physically imposing woman, stout and soft and a good four inches shorter than Val, but her anger was a fearsome thing, all the more powerful for its rarity.

Val knew better than to hide behind her cousins. Giving Mateo a reassuring smile, Val set Luz on the bed beside her brother, ruffled her hair, then followed Tía Rosa out of the room and down into the guest room on the first floor.

“Tía Rosa,” Val began, but her aunt was faster.

“How _dare_ you,” Tía Rosa hissed. Val flinched. “How _dare_ you feed them that kind of false hope.”

“It’s not--”

“No! I have spent the last two weeks singing my children to sleep, holding them in the middle of the night when they wake up screaming about crashes and blood and the ghost of their brother. We were finally— _finally_ beginning to heal, and then you come in and—and--”

Val spread her arms, her heart pounding painfully against her ribs. “Tía Rosa, please. Lance _is_ alive. I _know_ he is.”

Rosario only shook her head, backing away. “Don’t do this to us, Valeria. Don’t— _dios_.”

“I’m not trying to hurt you, Tía Rosa. I just—I’ve been looking into the accident, ever since they told us what happened. It doesn’t add up. People saw something in the sky that night, but it wasn’t a Garrison ship. It came down out in the desert where the Garrison says the training exercise was happening, and then it took off again in the morning. They don’t even _do_ night exercises, not in basic training. I’ve talked to _dozens_ of students and graduates, and all of them say the same thing. I _know_ Lance is alive. They sent him away somewhere, or someone took him, but he didn’t die. He--”

“Enough.”

Quiet though it was, Tía Rosas voice halted Val’s words in her throat.

“I think you need to leave.”

Val’s heart dropped. “But--”

“You’re hurting, Valeria. I know you are, but—we can’t handle this. Go out with your friends. Go speak with your grandmother. Just… don’t bring my children into this. They hurt enough as it is.”

The sting of Tía Rosa's words reverberated through Val, stopping whatever she might have said in self defense. She’d known it was too soon to bring this up. Rumors, cell phone videos posted to YouTube, a few interviews. It wasn’t proof, not any of it. Val should have waited until she had something more solid.

She didn’t bother to say goodbye before she left. She’d be back just as soon as she had her evidence.

* * *

An hour and a half later, Val parked her Jeep in the middle of open desert, shut off the engine, and rubbed the bridge of her nose. A chain link fence rose up among the reddish stone and dusty green weeds, topped with barbed wire and bearing a faded red metal sign that read, _Government Property. No Trespassing._ A whole string of legal codes marched across the bottom half of the sign as though to say, _Seriously, look at how many laws you’re already breaking just by looking at me. Do you_ really _want to do this?_

Val leaned back in her seat. “You’ve done a lot of stupid things in your life, Val, but this one takes the cake.”

She just had to remind herself that this was all for Lance. She might get arrested, might lose her job. ( _Wouldn’t_ lose her job as long as she brought the editor a good enough story, but _might_ , theoretically, if things went really pear-shaped.) For Lance, though, it was worth the risk.

She tapped the steering wheel twice, then climbed out, tucking her keys into the back pocket of her jeans, and grabbed the bolt cutters from the floor behind the driver’s seat. A few years ago they’d spotted a pack of endangered Mexican wolves in the foothills near here, and a grassroots conservationist movement had protested and lobbied for months on end until the Garrison grudgingly agreed to cut power to their border fence—and thank God. Val wasn’t here to make her family plan another funeral.

Just to be sure, she crouched to check the weeds growing around the base of the fence. A couple stalks twined in among the links, and they didn’t look scorched or anything, so it was probably safe.

Val bit her lip and raised the bolt cutters.

The first cut didn’t kill her. Neither did the second, or the thirteenth. She did tear her shirt as she squeezed through the narrow opening, but a ratty old tee shirt that was soon to be drenched in sweat was a small price to pay for answers.

The day was on the cool side of average for early September: high seventies with a few thin clouds to offer a tiny amount of shade. Mountains rose ahead of her to the south and west, but out here was nothing but flat, featureless wasteland.

Val checked the map on her phone and the marker she’d placed based on two dozen or so reports of varying credibility of the so-called meteor that had crashed on Garrison property the night of the seventeenth. She had almost two miles to walk, so she got started, reminding herself to drink regularly from her water bottle and occasionally checking her phone to be sure she was still on the right track.

By the time she reached her destination, she was tired, sore, and probably dehydrated, but she switched over to her phone’s camera and started recording.

“Okay,” she said, pausing to wipe her forehead with the hem of her shirt. Whether that made any difference, sticky as she was, was debatable. “So I’m out here in the desert about… uh, forty? Forty miles outside Carlsbad. Yeah. Something came down out here about two weeks ago, on August seventeenth, about eleven-thirty, eleven-forty-five at night. Officially, it was a meteor, but. Well. We’ll see.”

She paused, blowing out a long breath, then tucked her phone into her front pocket long enough to fix her ponytail. Just because temperatures weren’t in the nineties didn’t make it exactly comfortable out here, not after hiking for two miles, and Val had the same thick, curly hair as her mother. If she got heat stroke, it would be because her hair trapped her body-heat and fried her from the inside. She took another swig of water, the bottle uncomfortably light already. Hiking back was going to be awful.

Eventually, she had no other way to prolong the inevitable. The biggest downside to the flat land out here was that there was no vantage point. She couldn’t head for the top of a hill and survey the area, try to see where the meteor (or ship, or satellite, or whatever it was) had hit. All she could do was pick a direction and hope.

She set out more or less due south, describing landmarks for the benefit of her camera. Even if she didn’t find anything today, she would be back (assuming she wasn’t arrested), and she wanted to at least have some idea where she’d already been so she didn’t end up retracing her footsteps.

Actually, now that she thought of it, it might have been smart to head up into the foothills before breaking onto Garrison property. It was a long way away, but she might have been able to see something. There would probably be a crater or something...right? Val didn’t know all that much about meteors or spaceships or, well, any of it. Outer space, aircraft, physics… all of that had been Lance’s thing, not Val’s. She wrote about culture and current events and human interest stories. She knew psychology and sociology and a little bit of history and more than most about politics.

She was starting to think she hadn’t thought this through nearly as much as she should have.

But she was here, and no one had found her yet. She was going to take advantage of this opportunity while she had the chance. So she walked, scanning the horizon, which was blurred by mirages that made her eyes ache.

It was pure chance that she spotted something in the distance away to her right. Just a darker smudge against the washed-out landscape, like a mud flat or a mostly-dry riverbed. It could have been anything, but it was _different_ , and _god,_ but that was more than Val was getting from anything else out here in the middle of nowhere. So she turned toward the dark smudge, her pace picking up as she got closer and closer and the dark area got larger and darker and more distinct.

It was soot, or something like it. Scorch marks on the stone, long, gradually deepening troughs in the loose sediment. If Val didn’t know better, she might have mistaken it for the remnants of a flash flood; a shedwater that had shaped the area, maybe dragged some richer soil down from the foothills, then vanished in the summer heat.

But she _did_ know better, and she forgot the heat and the ache in her legs as she followed the trough toward the impact sight. She stopped at the lip of a crater and laughed in delight, aiming her camera down into the hollow. “Oh my god. Oh my _god!_  Do you see this? Meteor my _ass._  That’s a _ship_.”

It _was_ a ship. Big and shiny and metallic, shaped like the fuselage of one of the new Garrison ships, only without any wings. There were tarps and scaffolding set up around it in the bowl of the crater, but no one seemed to be around. Maybe they were all out to lunch, or maybe they only worked at night so no one could see them from the air. Or, well, something.

Val hesitated for only a second before stepping down into the crater, sand and loose rocks sliding away under her weight and carrying her into the hollow. She slowed to a stop a few feet from the ship, gaping at it. She’d never seen anything like this. Was it some kind of top secret military project? If so, what did that have to do with Lance and those other kids? It wasn’t like they’d have cadets piloting their experimental ships, right?

“Wait a minute,” Val said, zooming in on the strange-looking ship. “If this is what crashed out here, then… what the hell _took off_?”

“What are you doing here? This is a restricted area!”

Val’s heart plummeted as a pair of soldiers appeared around the nose of the ship, guns drawn. Val stuffed her phone into her back pocket, then raised her hands to show she was unarmed. “Sorry, sorry,” she said. “My car broke down and I was looking for help.”

The soldiers’ scowls deepened, and Val sighed. It had been worth a try. She might have run, except these people probably had cars, and she had more than two miles between her and freedom.

She didn’t resist when they took her into custody.

* * *

On the bright side, the Garrison holding cells were actually quite nice. They were large enough for a bit of nervous pacing and some running in place to keep herself awake, even if they weren’t exactly _spacious_. It was private, too, with a cot along one wall, a toilet in the back corner that Val refused to go near, and a table where they’d left her a glass of water and a couple of granola bars. It was reassuring to know they didn’t want her to die of starvation or dehydration.

Less nice was the fact that Val had been here for hours, and no one had come to tell her what was going on or give her a chance to call a lawyer, or her parents. They’d taken her phone and her shoes and her car keys, and she’d spent a good chunk of her captivity lying on her bunk counting divots in the ceiling, so she couldn’t say with any real certainty how long it had been, but it was long enough that she was ready to curl up and hope this had all been a bad dream.

She was pretty sure they should have read her her rights by now, at the very least. Or...maybe that part came when they actually talked to her? They’d basically ordered her to remain silent on the thirty-minute ride to the main campus, where she’d been rushed from the door of the SUV to the detainment center too quick for her to look around for help. So there hadn’t been a chance for self-incrimination, and she wouldn’t be surprised if they tried to get her to talk without a lawyer by waiting until the end of the business day so she’d have to stay overnight if she wanted to be stubborn about it.

Unfortunately for them, Val Mendoza was the _epitome_ of stubborn. If she had to suffer, so did Iverson.

But time stretched on, and the only people who showed up at her door were stone-faced guards bringing her more food and water. They ignored her questions, her demands for a phone call, even her witty insults. (Okay, maybe they weren’t that witty. She was running on fumes at this point, and her mental acrobatics weren’t up to par.) The guard changed several times, but Val didn’t know if that was a sign of how long she’d been here, or simply an effort to frustrate and confuse her.

She dozed a couple of times, maybe slept for a few hours straight once or twice, finally gave in and used the toilet in the corner. It was hard to be sure of time without a clock or a window or, well, anything. As her stay dragged on, the thought that this was what had happened to Lance wormed its way into her mind. Maybe he and his friends had seen something out in the desert, and the Garrison had made them disappear. Maybe they’d already told Val’s parents she was dead.

When things finally changed, it wasn’t the interrogation Val had been expecting. She heard muted voices through the door of her cell, loud and angry, and they stopped just outside. The lock beeped, and the door swung open. Iverson stood there, scowling, but he seemed almost cowed by the woman beside him—short, blonde, and dressed like a politician in a pencil skirt and blazer.

The woman held out a plastic bag containing Val’s shoes, phone, and keys. “Put your shoes on, Ms. Mendoza. I’m getting you out of here.”

Val stared at the bag, stunned. Boredom had numbed her mind, and she couldn’t piece together what was happening. The woman offered her an encouraging smile and, figuring she shouldn’t question it, Val sat on her bunk and pulled her boots out of the bag, tugging at the laces as her rescuer leaned against the door, one finger tapping against her arm. She looked _pissed_.

“Karen,” Iverson began, and the woman rounded on him.

“You may call me Mrs. Holt, Commander, though I would advise against saying anything that might further undermine my opinion of you.”

Iverson recoiled, his face going red. “ _Mrs._ Holt, have you forgotten who you’re talking to? I could have you arrested for trespassing--”

“And _I_ could flay you alive with what I’ve witnessed in the last twenty minutes,” Mrs. Holt snapped. “Failure to bring charges, failure to inform Ms. Mendoza of her rights, failure to provide counsel... Did you even give her a _phone call_ before you locked her up?”

“Now hold on just a minute, Karen--”

“I didn't think so. You have made a mockery of due process, Iverson, and believe me, I _will_ _not_ be letting this matter go.”

“But--”

“My client and I are leaving, Commander. Do yourself a favor and don't dig yourself a deeper hole.”

* * *

“So I’m, uh, I’m guessing these aren’t your clothes, Mrs. H, no?” Val asked, toweling off as she entered the kitchen in a Galaxy Garrison tee shirt and a pair of blue sweats, both of which were a little too short on her. But they were clean, and her hair was halfway civil. Her clothes were in the washer now, and it smelled like Mrs. H had dinner in the oven.

Then again, maybe not.

“Oh. Hi?” Val hugged her damp towel to her chest, smiling weakly at the apron-clad man holding a spatula. “I mean, these probably aren’t _your_ clothes, either, but...”

The man shook his head, smiling sadly. “If I had to guess, I’d say they’re Matt’s. Karen’s son.”

Val closed her eyes, grimacing. “Karen _Holt._ No wonder I recognized her name. The Kerberos mission.” Val plucked at the sleeve of her shirt. She felt vaguely guilty for wearing it now, even though Mrs. H was the one who had picked them out for her. “Am I the only one who thinks it’s weird to give a stranger your dead son’s clothes?”

“Well, that depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether you think Matt Holt’s really dead.” He kept his voice neutral—so neutral, in fact, that Val had to wonder if she’d misheard him. Seeing her confusion, he smiled, set his spoon on the edge of his skillet, then wiped his hands on his apron and shook Val’s hand. “I’m Eli.”

“...Val. Where’s Mrs. H?”

Eli jerked his head toward the living room. “Tell ‘em dinner’s almost ready.”

 _Them?_ Val wondered, but she didn’t stick around to ask. Karen had given Val a very brief tour of the house before leaving her at the bathroom door. She made her way back to the living room, where she found Mrs. H bent over a young man’s shoulder, staring at his laptop. Val cleared her throat, and they turned.

“Val,” Mrs. H said, smiling. “Feeling better?”

Val nodded, combing her fingers through her hair. “It’ll take more than a couple days in a holding cell to break me,” she said brightly. “Uh, Eli says dinner’s almost ready?” She glanced pointedly at the young man and wondered how many people Karen had working out of her house. And on what. Seemed a weird setup for a lawyer, especially one that showed up out of nowhere to get trespassers out of military prison.

Noticing her look, the young man touched his forehead in salute. “Akira Shirogane. Nice to meet you.”

“He’s the one who let us know they were holding you. _Illegally_ ,” Mrs. H added in an undertone, and Akira smiled into his hand.

“Shirogane.” Val raised an eyebrow. “Okay, so tell me. How does the Kerberos mission figure into what happened to my cousin?”

Akira and Mrs. H exchanged looks. Akira turned back to his computer. “I’m gonna let you handle this one, Karen.”

“How gracious of you,” she grumbled, then took a deep breath. “What would you say if I told you there’s a chance your cousin is still alive?”

Val couldn’t stop a smile from splitting her face. “Uh, _thank you_? And maybe, I'm glad I'm not the only one who sees through Iverson's bullshit?”

Akira glanced over his shoulder, one eyebrow arched. “That’s...not the reaction I was expecting.”

Mrs. H looked even more shocked, but instead of amusement, it was curiosity that simmered behind her eyes. “What do you know?”

“There wasn’t a training exercise that night,” Val said, adrenaline beginning to thrum inside her veins. She turned and began pacing the living room as she ran through everything she’d heard since the “accident.” “Something crashed in the desert.”

“Yeah,” Akira said, the sound of his clicking a steady backdrop to Val’s footsteps. “Eli’s blog has attracted similar reports. Nothing solid yet. Could just be a meteor.”

“It was a ship,” Val said, and the other two turned toward her, faces unreadable. “I saw it. Out in the desert.”

“A ship?” Akira opened a browser and keyed something in, then turned the screen toward Val. “Like this?”

Val recognized the ship in the image he’d brought up. It was the _Persephone_ , the ship that had carried Commander Holt and his crew to Kerberos. Chest tight, Val shook her head. “I’m sorry, no. It was—it wasn’t like anything I’d ever seen. It was--” She fumbled for her phone and searched for the videos she’d taken out in the dessert. “Shit.”

“What?”

“Iverson messed with my phone. I had _proof_ , and he _deleted_ it.”

Mrs. H closed her eyes, blowing out a long breath. “That’s all right. We’ll find more.”

“But what was the ship?” Akira asked. It felt like a loaded question.

Mrs. H shook her head. “A rescue mission?” she mused.

Val glanced from one to another. “Wait, wait, wait. Do you…” She paused, remembering Eli’s words. _Depends on if you think Matt Holt’s really dead._ “Are you saying the Kerberos crew is alive, too?”

Mrs. H picked up her cell phone from the arm of the couch, tapped the screen, and handed it to Val, who skimmed the texts in a conversation headed _Pidge_. Oh. “You knew my cousin’s communication officer?”

“My youngest,” Mrs. H said. “They enrolled as Pidge Gunderson to look into the Kerberos disaster, and on the night of the accident, they sent me _that_.”

Val stared at the last message, feeling like she’d stepping into some kind of dream. “Pidge found Matt?” Her brain kicked into high gear, and she sat down on the couch, hard. “You think he was on that ship that crashed?”

“Difficult to say, but that’s why I’ve brought you all together.” Mrs. H smiled at her. “Everyone here lost a family member to the Garrison. They might still be alive. They might not. I want to find out the truth, and I would welcome your help. What do you say?”

Val grinned. “I say let’s give Iverson hell.”

* * *

Karen smiled at Eli as he emerged from the kitchen, pulling the apron over his head. “Sounded like I missed some excitement,” he said, glancing around. “Where’d Val go?”

“Making a phone call,” Karen said. “She wants to write an article for the _Current_ about all this.”

Akira leaned back in his seat, blowing out a long breath. “She’s right.” Akira tipped his head back to look at the other two. “Something did take off from the desert the morning after the accident. There’s only one video of it, as far as I can find, and it doesn’t show much but...”

Karen and Eli gathered behind Akira to watch the shaky cell-phone recording of...well, _something_ rising over the mountains. It was blurry and distant and didn’t give them a whole lot to go on, but it was a hell of a lot more than Iverson was giving up.

Eli glanced her way. “Interesting, but… where is this coming from?”

“Val found a ship,” Akira said. “Those videos you dug up for us? They _are_ of a ship, and apparently not one the Garrison wants people to know about.”

Eli looked like he wanted to ask for more details, but before he could, Val stormed back into the room, her towel tossed over her shoulder, a look of fury on her face.

“That bastard got me fired!”

Karen turned, frowning. “What?”

“Iverson,” Val said. “He called my boss—and she won’t say it because she’s a wuss, but I’m pretty sure Iverson threatened to sue them if they kept me on. So congratulations, I’m unemployed!”

She dropped into the armchair, pressing her knuckles into the corner of her eyes. Karen glanced at Eli, who hesitated only a moment before leaning on the back of the chair. “Well, hey, that makes two of us.”

Val looked up at him, frowning.

“Leave of absence, technically, but I’m paid on commission so it’s the same thing. Point is, I could use another journalist type to help me out with the blog.” He gave a lopsided smile. “I’ve got the video editing down, but there’s always more research and networking and interviewing to be done.”

Val looked wary for a moment, but then she relaxed and reached up to shake Eli’s hand. “I’ll be the reporter, you be my cameraman, and we’ll bust this thing wide open?”

Eli grinned. “And meanwhile Karen brings the legal heat and Akira--”

“And Akira sees how long he can go without getting court-marshaled,” Akira muttered, but he, too was grinning. He stood, elbowing Karen as he passed. “Good thing I’ve already got a lawyer.”

Karen rolled her eyes and shooed him toward the kitchen. “Very funny, Akira. I assume the food’s ready, Eli?”

“Already on the table,” he said, pulling out his phone to show Val the website he’d built to attract attention of, as he put it, _fellow conspiracy theorists_.

Karen stopped in the doorway, watching silently as the other three took seats at a table that hadn’t seen a family dinner in over a year. Her house had been quiet for so long that it felt almost alien to have company over—more than that, to have _hope_ that she’d see her family again.

“So, Eli, tech wizard dude,” Val said, her chair scraping across the floor. “You gonna clean up those shitty videos and see what kinda ship took off after the _accident_?”

“You do realize post-production isn’t magic, right?”

“Sure, sure, but I mean. Come _on_. You’ve got this covered.”

Eli sighed, then spotted Karen standing by the door. “Everything okay?”

“Fine,” Karen said, joining them at the table. “Just fine.”

Akira waited until they’d all loaded their plates, then pointed his fork at Karen. “We’re going to have to figure out some way to stay in touch. I can’t always leave the Garrison at the drop of a hat, and I’m not sure I want to risk someone overhearing a phone call.”

Val sat up straight, a gleam in her eye. “I know exactly what we need.”

* * *

< **Prima Dawna** joined the conversation >

< **Prima Dawna** added three people to the conversation>

< **Prima Dawna** renamed the conversation **“Mama Holt’s Army”** >

 **Prima Dawna:** bam

 **Prima Dawna:** problem solved.

 **Prima Dawna:** group chat

 **Sven Holgersson:** Genius.

 **Prima Dawna:** akira, why tf is your un sven holgerson

 **Prima Dawna:** *holgersson wtf

 **Sven Holgersson:** Sorry. Inside joke with my brother.

 **Prima Dawna:**?

 **Sven Holgersson:** I… may have been slightly obsessed as a kid.

 **Prima Dawna:** with a dead norwegian pilot

 **camera god:** How do you know he’s Norwegian?

 **Prima Dawna:** bc I am a professional

 **Sven Holgersson:** right

 **Prima Dawna:** and my phone has google

 **Sven Holgersson:** that’s more like it

 **Prima Dawna:** shush

 **Prima Dawna:** Also

 **Prima Dawna:** Eli

 **camera god:** Val

 **Prima Dawna:** since when are you hip with the young cats?

 **camera god:** Okay, 1: don’t ever say that again. 2: What?

 **Prima Dawna:** your status

 **Prima Dawna:** “the darkroom is my temple; leave your tributes on the cutting room floor”

 **Prima Dawna:** do you know how many interns I would murder to come up with something like that?

 **camera god:** Hopefully none.

 **Prima Dawna:** let the record state that Mama H is calling her army ‘ridiculous’

 **Prima Dawna:** “we’re in the same room val omfg can’t we just talk?” she said, spooning more carrots onto her plate

 **Prima Dawna:** she’s glaring at chef eli now

 **Prima Dawna:** “are you serious?”

 **Prima Dawna:** “val”

 **Karen Holt:** Stop.

 **Prima Dawna:** booooooooooo

 **Prima Dawna:** “what are you boo-ing me for?”

 **Prima Dawna:** your name is lame

 **Prima Dawna:** shoulda gone with WARMOMGER

 **camera god:** I’m sorry, Karen.

 **Sven Holgersson:** So, so sorry.

 **Prima Dawna:** youre no fun

 **Prima Dawna:** any of u

 **Prima Dawna:** “we’re eating dinner val”

 **Prima Dawna:** “val put that away”

 **Prima Dawna:** “val i’m serious”

 **Prima Dawna:** “3”

 **Prima Dawna:** oh god she’s actually doing the countdown thing

 **Prima Dawna:** “2”

 **Prima Dawna:** “1”

 **Karen Holt:** Let the record state that Counselor Holt has entered Ms. Mendoza’s cell phone into evidence until the conclusion of dinner.

 **Sven Holgersson:** lmao

 **Sven Holgersson:** owned

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end... for now. As you might expect, there's a lot more to the story--but that goes way beyond the scope of this fic. If you want more of Mama Holt's Army, you're going to want to read the rest of the Voltron: Duality series. The first main installment, _Another Word for Never_ , concludes on Monday with the sequel to follow shortly.
> 
> In any case, thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed the ride as much as I have!


End file.
